Professor Doug Kmiec expands on his recent Slate piece, “Reaganites for Obama?” (in which he wrote, among other things, “Sorry, McCain, Barack Obama is a natural for the Catholic vote,” in this guest commentary, “The Moral Duty to Inquire.” Although I think the original piece was, in several respects, misguided, I also think that most of what he says in this second piece — e.g., the Faith and Catholic Social Teaching are not the property of one party, Catholic voters have a range of issues to consider, etc. — is sensible.
My own sense, for what it’s worth, of some conservatives’ reaction to Prof. Kmiec’s original piece was not so much that they thought (certainly, I didn’t) that it is wrong to “inquire”, from a Catholic perspective, into the merits of the Obama candidacy, but that Kmiec’s original piece mis-framed the debate (as the second piece, for the most part, does not — I say “for the most part” because the second piece still appears to regard the Catholic position on immigration as weighing against McCain and for Obama, which is not how I see the matter.)
In any event, check it out. Prof. Kmiec, everyone knows, has been a stalwart defender of religious freedom and the sanctity of life, in the academy, in law, and in policy, for decades. I do not believe that Sen. Obama — his attractive personality notwithstanding — is, in fact, a “Catholic natural”, but certainly, as Prof. Kmiec contends, it is entirely appropriate to ask whether Obama is, all things considered, the better choice for a Catholic. I don’t think he is, but I’m sure others will disagree.
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